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A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same pub, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his working life developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are preserved together with a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to